The Match King

Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind A Century of Wall Street Scandals

Frank Partnoy delivers a thrilling history lesson about an era and a nearly century-old Wall Street scandal rooted in unscrupulous investment banking and derivative hedge funds techniques developed by one man--Ivar Kreuger. Kreuger made his fortune in the 1920s by raising money from American investors to lend to European governments in exchange for match monopolies. Then he suddenly committed suicide in 1932. As his fraudulent schemes unraveled in the wake of his death, the so-called "Kreuger crash" began, bankrupting millions and leading to the enactment of the securities laws of 1933 and 1934